


I shall lay the weight of all these burdens at your feet

by Kindahappened



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: A whole lot of sadness and boys scorched by fire, Angst, Blood, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Scars, Smut, Sokka's trapped in cycles of abuse and violence, They might just find how to mend each other's wounds, They're both all sorts of broken, Undertone/suggestion of past rape, Violence, Zuko fights in the arena, Zuko only knows peace when he fights, arena fighting, crossover AU: Zuko and Soka live in the Korra era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:25:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindahappened/pseuds/Kindahappened
Summary: Zuko fights to forget.Until he meets Sokka.





	I shall lay the weight of all these burdens at your feet

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this over a year ago after falling head over heels for Zuko when watching Avatar again after 6 years. I had to finish it - it hasn't been completely corrected yet, please indulge me mistakes etc. I hope you will agree with the painful, obvious truth that should be Zuko and Sokka after reading this.  
> 

Zuko fights to forget: the emptiness, the betrayal, the burning flesh, the hurt. Red, like fire; gold, like power; black, like the silence that rings in his ears, echoes in his heart, empties his stomach.

But not quite.

Zuko fights to be strong, because the adrenaline and the blood fill his heart with steel and that's all he needs, all he wants, all he can survive with. He fights because the violence tears him up open and reminds him that he's someone’s worry, someone's threat, that he's defined by his abilities more than his failures. That he's in control.

He fights his opponents like he fights life - with a blood thirst that scares people away and cold hearted decisions that cut like blades. He doesn't hesitate, he doesn't dwell, doesn't weight options or feelings: he does everything he has to do so he can win.

//

There's something different about tonight, in the way the pit in his guts feels tighter, full of something else than buzzing electricity and anticipation. He doesn't take the time to identify it though, pushes it further down, but it’s persistent. Zuko is used to the numbness, and the deep tremor that comes with it. He knows, but that doesn’t make it easier.

 

The feeling takes over his entire body when he sees his opponent of the night. It's the semi-finals and his jaw is tight in concentration, but he finds himself shivering when he sees the shape of the body in front of him.

It's a girl.

 

It's not that he has a problem with them, it's just -he's conflicted. They're gentleness and love but can also be bites full of venom. They're his mother, calm and soft and ever so caring, they're his sister, lying and full of anger and betrayal. They make him flinch because he never knows how to handle them when he's not in utter, complete control - he doesn't know how to talk to them and when he fucks them, he does it with moves of power and cold that make him shiver from fear and pleasure. He knows it's wrong, knows it's not how it's supposed to work, knows well enough how positive dynamics go: but Zuko is broken and the few women in his life were the ones who had twisted the knives, partly.

He's quick enough to recover though, because the girl in front of him bends with as much rage as him, and almost as much experience. He sees Azula in the way the tip of her fire verges on the blue, on how electric she feels, smells, looks. She firebends with grace but moves with feet rooted in the ground, lean and strong. She's not weak. She's not gentle. She hates him as much as he hates her, and somehow that makes it easier for him: his fire inflates and reaches higher, deeper. The flames lick the girl's armour and reflect in her golden eyes and Zuko feels so, so much anger in him that he ends up winning in one last breathless blast, sweat rolling down his cheeks like tears.

 

 

 

In the lockers room, people know to congratulate him with tight nods and guarded smiles, to never touch him. They tell him how strong he was, as always, never going backwards, always fighting back -how they admire his technique and the energy of his moves, how invested he always is without every betraying himself. He doesn't listen to them, the cheering of the crowd still making his ears ring, the sight of the girl's limbs bending in the wrong way with awkward angles as she fell down the pit still hovering behind his closed eyes. He stands up and has to steady himself against the wall, letting out one deep exhale that crackles like a flame about to burst. He doesn't bother covering up, he's always boiling, the fire inside him always burning, never quiet. He enters the night like he's always belonged in it, snowflakes dancing around him, moonlight reflecting on the pale skin, digging shadows on his body.

 

 

The street is narrow and dark and covered with snow that looks too white, that shines too bright, almost out of place, out of time. Zuko hears a broken moan and stops dead in his tracks, eyes scanning the dead alley, until they catch a shivering shadow against the wall, a few meters from him.

The shadow of a boy trembles in the dark, and if Zuko would usually turn back, he feels the tightness in his stomach pull again, tugging with every inch he takes backwards. He has nowhere to go, no one to go back to, so Zuko steps towards.

The first thing that hits him is the smell of the boy that envelops him like an aura. It's spices and blood and a heat that's different from his: it's a warmth that's verging on softness, though opposed to the electric freshness that comes with him. It makes Zuko frown, because this is a contradiction that goes beyond his zone of understanding and that frustrates him. With the flick of his hand, he lights a small ball of fire between them and crouches down.

The boy's head snaps up and suddenly his face is too close to Zuko's. The fire beneath them carves his high cheekbones and he locks his eyes with his.

 

They're blue. A blue so fierce and bright and Zuko has never, ever seen eyes like this before: huge and open and earnest but also never wavering, blunt and strong, filled with determination and maybe there's a hint of defiance there, which makes the skin on the back of Zuko's neck crawl.

The boy is tanned, furiously contrasting against the white snow around him and the paleness of Zuko's hand, almost like a provocation. Huddled against himself, he looks skinny even in his Water Tribe clothes, the fur dropped around his neck, thick leather tight around his arms and legs.

He's everything Zuko isn't: fierce and beautiful, the kind of boy mothers warn their daughters about, the kind of boy who gets you wrapped around his finger in a matter of time, who traps you in without a move, without a word. But he's also broken.

His lower lip is cut deep and there's blood running down his left cheek. There's a bruise next to his eye and the flames light the cuts on his forehead, his cheekbones, his jaw. The skin on his neck is raw and his hair, too long, sticks with drying blood. He looks ruined.

There's something in him, something vibrant that Zuko can feel, something that overwhelms him and that he can't quite define, but there's also something that isn't there, and as much as Zuko tries, he can sense no spiritual power. This boy can't bend. This boy is weak.

He's so entrapped in the sight of him that he doesn't react when the sting of the blade hits his neck and he's pushed over, the boy's body suddenly pining him down, snow burning against his naked skin, though none of them shivers. He's surprisingly strong, more than what he expected, fast, also. Zuko lies very still, waits for what comes, waits for his window.

"What do you want?" - it sounds like a menace, and Zuko can't help but smirk at that.

"You looked hurt, came to see if you needed help". The pressure on his wrist tightens, nails digging in the flesh. The blue of his eyes goes hard and cold.

"I don't need anyone's help, and certainly not yours, pretentious, stupid fire bender -" he's cut by Zuko's knee hitting the centre of his stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs. He winces in pain and Zuko pushes him, standing up and slowly dusting off the snow sticking to his thin shirt. The boy below him is whizzing and coughs out blood, but Zuko feels nothing else but disdain.

"Right then" he says, and his voice shouldn't be so tight, but he keeps it absolutely flat and detached still, "goodnight".

He turns around and jumps back in the night, without looking back.

 

//

 

It's the final and he all can feel is the twitching of his muscles, the restlessness in his arms, the blur in front of his eyes. He feels numb and too full all at once, heart throbbing against his chest, fists clenched, breath hot against them. He looks down and inhales deeply, air itching in the back of his throat. He knows he's ready, knows he has a very good chance of winning - he's a favourite and knows how to handle all types of fires and bodies, knows his heart and knows control. He has the drive already deeply rooted inside him, the hunger for the fight and the need for victory. They all do, but for Zuko it's vital, it's to shut down the voices and delay the widening gap that fills him up day after day.

He can hear the crowd go silent through the walls and he knows it's time.

 

 

He's shivering on the cold ground, knees bended against himself. He couldn't redirect the lighting, forbidden and aggressive, ignored by the judge, that took him by surprise and hit his chest, ripping open the metal, searching for the heart, making his bones jolt and his entire face constrict with pain.

Images flash in front of is eyes: a different place, a different opponent, a different fire; the burning flesh and the horror paralysing him, the trench it'd been digging in his mind and heart ever since, the feeling of weakness. Someone else, a shadow, behind the curtain: furtive and dark and he sees a smile drawing on her face, repulsing him, making him throw up emptiness and his eyes water. The two feet in front of him pause for an instant, and he holds onto hope for a moment -he's young, so young, barely thirteen, but the burn on his face is nothing compared of the one that reaches in everywhere when his father turns his back on him and walks away, without looking back.

He thinks: this is not all. This can't be the end. He thinks: I will prove them wrong. They're watching me, somewhere. I'll prove them.

He feels the wrong kind of energy inside him, accepts the hurt as it rips him from the inside, knows he has a choice. His head is pounding and his hands shake but he stands, throwing himself back on his feet and the entire arena is silent, and his opponent who had been running in circles with victorious arms and eyes filled with victory and pride is quick to realise it’s not over.

Something, or someone, catches Zuko's sight in the middle of the crowd. A colour in the middle of the mostly red outfits. White fur on a navy blue outfit, shells worn as a tight neckless on brown, brown skin and... It's the boy of the alley.

He looks so different that Zuko almost doesn't recognise him at first. He still has the same fierceness behind his eyes, the defiance in his stand, but he’s healed. There’s no more cut on his face and he looks strong now, so strong it makes Zuko shiver.  
The boy is watching him and he smiles, a smile that confuses Zuko because there it is again, the cockiness, almost as if he’s telling him, go on, show me what you’re capable of.  
Zuko breathes deep one time before exhaling a flame that inflates, reaches for the strength inside his body and comes out huge, licks the opponent’s face, close and dangerous and when Zuko looks back searching for boy, the standing crown swallowed him up.

 

After the fight, after the pain, there’s nothing left but a bitterness in his mouth and a lump in his throat. Zuko obstructs any feeling by letting the overwhelming ache in his body take over. He lets it slide against the wall, the sound of his body hitting the floor echoing in the cold and empty locker room. He can still hear the whispers of the other fighters in the corridor, the footsteps and harsh clicking of their combat boots. He exhales a febrile flame and goes numb.

Sokka finds him like this: head resting between his knees, shoulders tense with frustration.

"I want you to teach me" he says, and Zuko’s mind goes blank.  
"Oh so you want me now?" he shoots back, and when the boy's eyebrow quirks up and a smirk appears on his lips, Zuko feels heat coming to his cheeks.

"I do" he replies, and Zuko doesn't understand why the boy came to see him fight, why the boy wants him to be close, why the boy wants him at all.

"But I just lost" he says after a beat of silence, "why would you want me as a teacher?"

"Because you were better than him out there" the non bender replies, and there's no hint of hesitation in his voice.

At this point Zuko just laughs, and he's surprised by how light it sounds, by the genuine wonder that rings in it. The boy cocks his head to one side and keeps looking straight at him, not amused.

"Tell that to the judge, then"

"I don't care about that. What matters is the fire in you. I need some of it myself."  
The blush on Zukko’s cheeks lingers, long after he said yes and Sokka left the room without looking at him.

 

They meet three times a week, talk very little. There’s still something about Sokka that Zuko doesn’t quite understand, doesn’t grasp, and he thinks that’s why he keeps teaching him even though it feels like he’s getting nothing in return. Or maybe it’s for the smile Sokka shoots him whenever he thinks he’s winning.

It doesn’t start well. Sokka is clumsy and too tall for his own good; he trips over his own legs, never remembers to keep his guard up. He’s good with a boomerang, but Zuko always says, what’s a warrior without a sword? Sokka usually replies with a sulk and pulls the boy’s hair. Zuko’s breath catches in his throat every time.  
But beneath the awkwardness of his first moves, Zuko senses how good he is with arms, how strong and resistant his muscles are. He thinks of how powerful of a bender Sokka would have been, and a wave of sadness takes over.

 

Sokka almost has new bruises at each session, but Zuko doesn't ask questions. He’s learned that he loves talking about everything but what really matters and that anything that feels too intimate, too close, too dangerous, he ducks out of it as fast as he can. He tried, once - as gently as possible, he asked, you never told me why you want to learn. He said it with his eyes sliding on Sokka’s face, on the cut of his lips and the dried blood on his collarbones. Sokka had left the room and hadn’t shown up in two weeks.

He tries again, after a month. For the first time, Sokka manages to block Zuko’s swords and pushes him against the wall, the blade so close to his neck that memories from the first time they met make Zuko’s skin feel electric. There’s a proud smirk on his lips, still slightly swollen from a punch that came from someone else than Zuko.  
He lets a deep breath out and searches into Sokka’s blue, blue eyes, searching for an answer he still hasn’t found.  
 "Sokka…" he starts, and the boy’s smile disappears, his eyes changing suddenly. They become guarded, colder, and he shifts backwards, the heat trapped between them suddenly disappearing and Zuko shivers. It’s too late now, Sokka knows what this is about, and he would be a coward if he didn’t go all the way. He takes one step forward, reaches for the one shoulder that doesn’t make Sokka wince when it’s touched.  
"You have to talk to me" he says, and he’s ashamed by how soft it sounds, how scared the tip of his words are. "I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me what’s going on."  
Sokka doesn’t say a word for a minute that feels infinite. But then the boy throws his sword on the floor and looks at him with such disgust and anger in his eyes that it makes the blood in Zuko’s body go cold. "You’re pathetic" he says, and runs away without another word.

 

It somehow becomes their reality, a truth that lies unspoken between each other. There are rules that Zuko knows not to bend, and he thinks that the smile on Sokka's face when he realises that Zukko's being _good_ , he's listening, he's _obeying_ to Sokka's silent commands might be worth it.  
He craves answers, of course - every time that he sees new scars flourish on Sokka's dark skin, _red and yellow and sickeningly blue_ , one cascading into the other, so much that there's never a day without one wound on Sokka's face.  
But every time Sokka's body is flushed against his, on the floor or against the wall, when Sokka's sword finds its way closer and closer to his neck in close combat, when every week he feels Sokka's muscles twitch with increasing strength and confidence, when with every lesson he grows into something of power, something that's openly defiant, Zuko's nostrils flare with pride and the dark of his pupils deepens with want.  
  
That's _his_ , he thinks, feels, realises, he's the one who's instilled such power into Sokka. His and no one else's.  
His heartbeat becomes heratic every time their lips brush, conscious but still in the need to deny that there's something, there,  
  
Zuko, for the first time in forever, finds himself wanting something that he cannot seem to have. Something's consuming him inside, and he tries to fight it with all he has, but he can feel it's slowly eating him alive.

 

It's dark when Zuko stumbles outside the bar, alcohol pushing against his veins, mixing with fire in a messy, thick liquid, head spinning and limbs shaking. The cold wind slaps him hard and he lets the harsh bite of snow shroud his entire being, thinking that maybe, maybe it will clear the fog of his brain.

Winters make him weak. Winters make the fire inside him scowl and bark and Zuko doesn't know if it makes him more alive and plunges him into a state of numbness that might be scaring him a little, somewhere in the corner of his brain.

He walks without intent but his feet take him towards his flat, almost begging, screaming, please, please let go. There's too many things, too much intensity, to many unsolved needs and wants inside of him that every fiber in his body begs him to relinquish. But he can't, he knows he can't: because the tiredness under his eyes, the ache burrows deep inside his bone and the growing roar inside him are all he has left, all he can survive with. Zuko's not sure if it's the voice echoing in his head or the cold on his face that makes him shiver, but he pushes the thoughts away as he turns to the street of his home, his ribcage too tight, a tug in his guts reappearing, strong, hard, insisting.

 

The smell of Sokka hits him before he even sees him. His head snaps up and he looks for the silhouette he's known to recognise, lean and strong and graceful.

He finds him crouched on the ground, half covered in snow, mouth purple and skin livid. His lids are shut and when Zuko calls his name, he doesn't move. There's blood running down his cheeks, coming from an open wound to his forehead. The skin around his left eye is dark and swollen and Zuko's stomach clenches because for a brief instant he's staring at himself, vulnerable and so fucking open and weak, and his whole being tenses because suddenly there's this odd feeling of familiarity that makes its way inside of him, there's worry and pain and anger, so much of it, as he touches the boy's shoulder, gentle, too gentle, the sound of his own voice echoes on the street, dying with the wind.

Sokka never replies, doesn't wake up. Zuko feels the fire inside him swell with every shaky, feeble breath the boy lets out, and his heart aches, aches as he envelops him with his arms and carries him through the dark.

 

 

As he disinfects the cuts, Zuko tries to ignore the way Sokka's clothes are ripped at the wrong places, around his ribs and stomach, the collar of his tee shirt, inbetween his legs, at the low of his back.

 

He clenches his eyes shut as he focuses on retrieving the pain from the boy's chi, feeling the tip of his fingers burn as the flow of energy runs between their bodies. Sokka shifts and grabs his arm, groaning as pearls of sweat roll on his too-hot cheeks.

 

The fever eats him whole for several hours and Zuko feels terror creep inside him as he feels Sokka's pulse slip set between his fingers. It takes him energy he didn't know he had to make it slow again, peaceful almost.

 

Zuko watches him sleep and thinks of his mother. He’s never been one to nurture, even less care. There’s something about Sokka that tugs at the buried side of him. A side that died many times, a side of him that's weak and cares _too much_. It's a side of him that cost him half of his face, his honor, his family, and any sense of self worth. What is the point of caring, Zuko asks himself, if love only gets your burnt?

 

When Sokka wakes up two days later, he finds himself almost completely naked, exposed, in a bed that's not his, in a bed he doesn't remember getting into. Shreds of memories play in front of his eyes wide open, wet with horror and pain. Strong hands bruising his left hip, dirty fingernails digging into his bones, his veins, his soul. His muffled screams, the sensation of loosing himself, surrending his body after fighting for so long - he's not sure if it's the strange relief of knowing there's nothing else he can do, or sheer terror that just paralises him. He had been beaten up before, countless times; touched and cut wide, stabbed, jagged, but this time it's different, this time he's powerless, this time it went so far and he didn't realise until it was too late. Something - no, someone, though it feels inhuman, _wrong, wrong_ \- thrusting into him, and with every jerk of his shaking hips, the screams die on his chapped, open, bleeding lips ...

His entire body jolts upwards, the cuts that Zuko had spent so long mending suddenly opening wide open, inside and out.

"Sokka, what on earth happened to yo-" Zuko starts, his hand only a few centimeters away from the bare skin left there, so close, yet so out of reach-

"They broke me" Sokka wants to say, to scream, but it stays caught in his throat and the small, strangled noise he produces instead sounds utterly terrified, like he's just woken up from one nightmare into another. He flinches, jumps out of bed and falls, the sound of his bony knees hitting the wood floor making a horribly dry sound that echoes everywhere around them and dies with any other coherent thought.

When Zuko opens his eyes again, Sokka is gone.

 

 

Forty eight hours.

There's still shards of glass left on the floor, tainted with Sokka's blood when he'd stepped on them, running away barefoot, away from the truth, away from Zuko.

He can't make himself throw them away.

 

Two hundred and forty hours.

He's tried everywhere - the back alleys, the bar, the arena, the clubs. Sokka is nowhere to be found, and in the thick darkness of the night, Zuko realises that he had given up on control as soon as the cold blade of Sokka's knife had hit the paleness of his own skin. He'd lost control and inevitably, he had lost Sokka.

 

Five hundred and four hours.

The lump in his throat doesn't go away.

He still falls asleep in the abandoned gymnasium space that keeps echoing of his previous fights with him, waiting for a shadow that doesn't come.

 

Eight hundred and ten hours.  
Zuko wishes he would stop looking for Sokka every time he sees colour.

 

After a month, the flickering flame nested between his ribs, the one that held his throat so tight and his mind so alert, starts to die down. His heart aches and he resents himself for it, for yearning for something that he should never be allowed to have, that he never quite posessed in the first place.

 

One thousand, three hundred hours.

Sometimes Zuko wonders if Sokka was truly real. He's almost convinced himself that it was just a distorted fragment of reality, something that shone too bright for that it came from a place of complete darkness. He almost believes it, if it wasn't for the smell of the ocean and cold ice that lingers on his bed sheets, no matter how many times he washes them.

 

The weeks blur into months - and Zuko pretends he's stopped keeping track of how long it's been since Sokka shattered inbetween his fingers and disappeared, leaving him even more cut and bruised that before he'd found him, even though every hour adds up and increases the weight on his shoulders.

His fighting has changed, and people have noticed - it's not pure rage anymore, they say, it's tainted with a desperation that no one can truly pinpoint, not even Zuko. He wins every single fight, but it feels hollow and meaningless. He feels like he's reaching for something lost that he had no idea he had every owned.

How can you be so deeply affected by something that's never truly been yours?

Something inside of him whispers that it might have simply been all because he had allowed himself to hope.  
To hope for someone who could understand him. That someone could look at all his scars and never feel pity, but instead pride and love for them. That maybe, just maybe two broken things could have mended each other. That he could have found solace in someone else's cracks, someone else's sufferings, and cherished them for what they were.

He stops looking for the colour blue after three months, because Sokka isn't coming back.

 

 

Until he does.

It's 3 am and Zuko's broken body trips over the wood bars scattered on the floor of the abandonned gymnasium. The sound is too loud, the air too sharp, too cold. It smells like ice, and the ocean, and he curses his body for leading him here, his mind clouded by the alcohol, numb and alive all at once.  
There's a shadow that's leaning against the column on his left, and for a brief instant Zuko freezes, the shadow moving, darkness among darkness, towards him. His breath hitches and a shiver shakes his whole body - is he hallucinating again?

The edges of the shadow become more defined, the smell intensifies, the sharpness of frozen water overpowering every other sense, and suddenly, from darkness to light, Zuko falls into a pool of blue, a blue so deep and dark that it swallows him whole.

Sokka's here.

He suddenly feels painfully sober, hyperaware of everything - the sharpness of the blade in his back pocket, digging into the thickness of his jeans, the uneven concrete under his knees, the trembling of his fingers as he reaches up, up, towards the eyes that he had spend so long forgetting, forgiving... 

Sokka's skin is real against his bruised fingertips, so real and warm and _alive_ that it stabs Zuko in the heart with an immense force, _he's here he's alive_ and relief and pain and _anger_ suddenly taking over, clouding his mind, every blood cell in his body screaming, yelling ...

  
His fist collides with Sokka's jawline and everything cracks, too full, too loud, it resonates through the entire room and finds its way deep into Zuko's bones. He hits, and hits again, and it takes Sokka's nose to bleed profusely for him to react, to get over the shock and to counter Zuko's rage and resentment with his own fists.

They fight so hard that they're both panting, sweat dripping down their faces and running down their necks, collarbones, mixing up where their bodies meet, right above their navels. Zuko's brain feels it's exploding, his body desperately trying to ask all the questions that surge up to his lips but never quite come out.  _Where have you been all this time? Why did you leave me? Why would you open all my wounds wide to then leave them gaping? How could you betray me, when I cared so much, for the first time, so much that it hurt, Sokka..._

Their breaths are rugged and everything's a blur, but suddenly Sokka's hand is in Zuko's hair and they're so close that Sokka rushes to crash his lips against Zuko's, his body at loss for any other way to _show him_ , desparately trying to answer all the questions he knows he's being asked. _I'm sorry_ he tries to say, _I never_ _meant for you to hurt,_ but it's still too early for Zuko to listen. They kiss with hunger, they kiss the life out of each other, they bite and groan and get drunk on the sense of belonging and loneliness, together and apart, as they try to find each other again.

 

Sokka allows Zuko to take him whole, to take him hard, filled with a lust tinted with resentment and pain. He lets him bend his back and lets him spread his legs open, lets him swallow him entirely, every inch of his skin absorbing Zuko's pain. _If only I could ease your soul, like you did for me that night, when I was still asleep..._ Zuko's ears don't stop ringing until he's pulled apart every piece of Sokka, leaving him panting and glistening with sweat, shaking limbs holding his hips, his shoulders, eyes rolled back with the ghost of a smile hovering over his lips. He suddenly feels extremly tired, as if his mind had been wiped clean, and when Sokka nudges against his neck and pushes him gently onto the floor, he lets himself go entirely, pupils suddenly two gaping holes begging for Sokka's tenderness.

Sokka touches him in a way that lights a fire everywhere his fingertips touch. Sokka undoes him entirely, and Zuko finds himself able to hear, finally - with every touch, every kiss left on his skin, every sturdy, slow, deep thrust inside of him, he hears, everywhere, Sokka's appology. 

_I won't let you go again._

 

They've been holding each other in the silence of the gymnasium for what feels like an eternity. Every time his mind starts counting again - _when will he leave?_ \- Sokka's hand finds his own, the words unspoken yet so strongly _there_.

 There would be time for answers, he realises. It will take hours, days, months maybe before Sokka finds the strength to talk about the unspeakable. For him to tell Zuko the story of his wounds, the reasons why he was trapped in a cycle of endless violence, why he felt like he deserved to be hit, to be beaten up, bloody and broken and unholy, how he looked for a reason to live inside every single cut of his flesh, desperate. How he realised that maybe the answer laid in the burnt flesh of a firebender's face, in all of his strength and tenderness that Sokka had refused to accept. How it took him three month, thirteen days, and three hours to mend himself after he had been stripped of the little he had left, back into a single, shaky piece, held together enough to finally see Zuko again.

Zuko's mind drifts, away from their entangled limbs, away from the quiet comfort of each other. There's something tugging at his stomach, but it's a different feeling from usual - this time it feels like it's expanding his chest, like flowers blooming through every crack of his skin. Like he's breathing again. He feels like he _finally_ understands, like he has just found a piece of himself that he never knew was missing, and he's suddenly transported to the landscape of his childhood.

 _Wabi Sabi_. Iroh's voice echoes, deep and comforting in the stiffness of the palace, whispering things that his young mind is yet to understand. Zuko was confined in his chambers after disappointing his father in combat - Azula always so strong, him always so vulnerable. He had always tried so hard, to be the perfect, perfect son of the Firelord - but his father seemed to have known the truth about his son's impurity as soon as he was born. He never stood a chance.

 _Wabi Sabi_ , Iroh had said, in the darkness of the room, voice only loud enough to cover Zuko's sobbing, _the beauty of things imperfect. A longing and understanding of things that are hidden, ephemeral, tentative._ He had placed his large, old hand on the trembling ribcage of the ten years old, already so broken, already deficient. _Remember_ , his warmth suddenly rushing back to Zuko's present, _to love every bruise, every failure, every inexactitude. They are what will save you.  
_

Zuko had never understood how someone could be perfect in all of their imperfection. Purity was something you were born with - along with honor, bravery, intelligence - it was a right of birth, of blood, a privilege that made a selected few. His world had been so clearly split that it hadn't crossed his mind that Iroh's words might have been more than that of an old man who had lost everything to someone purer than him. It had always been so painfully obvious to him, the absence of choice in who you had to be - benders and non benders, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weaks. He hadn't understood, until ...  
He traces the long white scar that runs along Sokka's side, all the way from under his arm to the edge of his hipbone, like someone had jabbed a knife into him and dragged it down to expose every single thing burried inside Sokka's chest. His fingertips run along the other scars, strips, scabs, the mixes of ink and blood tattoed into his lover's skin, his touch no longer hesitant but instead growing with tenderness, deprived of sadness but instead, tinted with a growing determination.

" _Wabi Sabi..."_ He murmurs it into his lover's flesh, revels in its newly found truth, whispers it like a mantra, over and over again, " _wabi, sabi, Sokka, I've missed you so much..._ "

Sokka's breath catches in his throat and he hooks his fingers in the neckline of Zuko's shirt, holding onto him like a drowning man on a lifeline. But this time it feels real, tangible- Zuko is steady against him, he's warm and strong and maybe also broken into a thousand pieces, but Sokka feels like they might just know how to smooth each other's edges and find solace in each other's wounds.

**Author's Note:**

> The essence of Zuko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDAL5G9Xwn4


End file.
